Jamal Crawford had fought perceptions and aspired to prove them false everywhere, and Doc Rivers was infused into his NBA life with one request. Be yourself. Be Jamal Crawford. Everyone had thought of Crawford as a gunner, even Rivers. When their genuine personalities quickly meshed, Rivers asked Crawford not just to accept any role but embrace and master it.

In so many ways, they formed a most unconventional partnership of all the Los Angeles Clippers. No one knew how Crawford would fit into the coach’s old Boston Celtics schemes and how he’d be implemented, but Rivers listened last summer to Vinny Del Negro’s endorsement of the shooting guard and Crawford heard around the league of his new coach’s compassionate command.

So Crawford scored seven of his 18 points in the fourth quarter of the Clippers’ sensational comeback over the Oklahoma City Thunder, 101-99, on Sunday. Ball in his hands to generate something out of nothing on the perimeter, and only Chris Paul garners his teammates’ utmost trust in those waning moments.

Long before he captured his second Sixth Man of the Year award a week ago, long before he averaged the most points since 2008-09, Crawford received a direct order from his new coach, a message his teammates reciprocated: don’t change. Absorb the finer details of the sport. Be Jamal Crawford, one of the NBA’s remarkable enduring scorers. To him, nothing was doctored for the sake of spewing.

“This is the best team that I’ve been on, with the best coach out there along with coach [Gregg] Popovich, and I feel I found a home,” Crawford told RealGM during the second half of the season. “Doc gives me – gives us all – so much confidence on both ends. I definitely hope this situation lasts. In this business, you never know what can happen, but for me I feel like I found a home.”

For a player discarded by five other organizations, Rivers ensured this team accept Crawford’s strengths and cloak his weaknesses. For his part, Crawford adds a new layer to his arsenal of moves every year and impresses upon a scoring knack that’s going on and on and on.

As Rivers said this season, “Jamal is a scorer, and you can never turn that off about him.”

Crawford isn’t going away, and this isn’t typical across his generation of the league, the everlasting, unwavering and steady scoring into his mid-30s. He has such ease to his jump shot, such an array of floaters in the paint. The Clippers need his sparks off the bench – for which he sets the barometer of success.

Somewhere after his playing career, Crawford will still be hoisting those uncanny heaves from beyond the arc and flashing that crossover dribble. He seamlessly could play in the NBA until he’s 40, could approach 20,000 career points on this pace, and his style makes it all possible. Crawford limits reliance on his athleticism, manufacturing the sliver of space needed to create a shot attempt and using his repertoire of shooting motions.

Among his peers, Crawford is an ageless scorer.

“I honestly believe that after I retire, I’ll still be playing all the time at LA Fitness,” Crawford said. “I love the game, love basketball before I loved anything else. The way my game is, it doesn’t change. It’s not off athleticism. It’s more being crafty, more skill than anything. I think, God willing, no major injuries, I’ll have a long, long career.

“I watch basketball a lot. I watch the game a lot, learn and want to be a student of the game. For me, I see what works, what doesn’t work.”

For a realization of which moves work, of the angles available to him, this is the diligence necessary for Crawford in film studies. All of this external drama – the disgraceful comments of Donald Sterling meddling a championship pursuit – and the appeal of social media draws Crawford to his cell phone even on playoff nights, when he isn’t watching footage. He’s mastered Twitter, mastered the exchange between pro athlete and fan and how sincerity reverses a perception of a selfish on-court persona.

“It’s pretty cool changing perspectives, people interacting with me,” Crawford said earlier this season. “I’m not trying to be different – I’m just being myself. It shows people a different side to me. Everybody uses it differently. It’s whatever you feel. That’s the greatness of social media: it’s your thoughts. I honestly didn’t like Twitter before because I didn’t understand it. I was like, what am I going to say, ‘I’m going to eat?’ People don’t care about if I’m going to eat. But then I felt it was for the fans I’ll never get the chance to meet.

“For me personally, I always want to be positive. There are so many people and kids I’ll never get a chance to meet, so it’s always about being positive. There’s enough negative stuff going on in the world.”

Negative perceptions had followed Jamal Crawford to Los Angeles; the label of a gunner, a loser. Where would he fit into the defensive system of that rugged championship coach, Doc Rivers? All these coaches in his NBA career, and Crawford became indispensable for his newest one. Just stay yourself, and we’ll help round your game, the Clippers’ coaching staff explained to him. Just be Jamal Crawford.